ChangeLogs?

[Hollis Blanchard]

ChangeLog files are new to me, so could somebody help explain them? 
(Yes I've read the GNU Coding Standards.)

It seems to me that the ChangeLog is an anachronism born in a time 
before source control systems, and a poor substitute for the actual 
patch. The GCS does not explain the role of the ChangeLog file in the 
context of a system like CVS, and I find that to be a glaring omission. 
Why would you want a ChangeLog when CVS can tell you what *really* 
happened?

I guess my real problem is the level of detail in the ChangeLog: way 
too much, or way too little. If you want that much detail, read the 
patch. "New variable" doesn't give you enough detail anyways: What type 
is it? Where is it initialized? Where is it used? Or it gives you too 
much detail: maybe you just want to know that there's a firmware bug in 
certain systems that we work around by setting a flag so later code 
knows to avoid it.

There are also many ChangeLog features (such as say "macro" instead of 
"#define", and "variable" instead of "global") which are not described 
in the GCS, so I assume these are either project/maintainer-specific, 
or unwritten rules that all GNU members "just know". That makes it very 
difficult to follow them.

-Hollis